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Amid loss, kindness buoyed boy’s family

View SlideshowRequest to buy this photoBARBARA J. PERENIC | DISPATCHRehana, left, and Derar Musa keep photos of their son Adam in every room of their home. They are holding an open house today to thank those who helped them through their loss.

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In the last few minutes of his life, 4-year-old Adam Musa had some big questions for his
father.

He snuggled up next to him on the couch in their Northwest Side house and asked how to properly
wash before the daily Muslim prayers. His dad, Derar, showed him.

He asked what you got after washing, for all that work. His dad told him you can pray and you
get credit for good deeds. And after that, Adam asked, what do you get for those good deeds? What
comes after that?

“If people pray, don’t hurt other people, respect their parents, help the neighbors, when they
die ... then they go to paradise,” Derar Musa told his son. In paradise, he told him, people want
for nothing. There, it’s ten times better than the best day on Earth.

Adam’s last question to his dad that morning, on Aug. 22, the last question he’d ask in his
life, was whether he would see Allah in paradise. Yes, his dad told him, he would.

Then they went outside with Adam’s mother, Rehana, to leave for her doctor’s appointment. But
instead of getting in the family car, Adam ran ahead and climbed into his older brother’s truck
parked in the driveway. Somehow, the truck started to roll down the driveway, and Adam panicked. He
fell out and was crushed by a front wheel rolling over his head.

Columbus police inspected the truck and found a mechanical flaw in the gear selector. Adam was
able to change gears without pressing the brake or having the key in the ignition, said detective
Ron Custer. “It was simply an accident.”

Mr. and Mrs. Musa have replayed that exchange between father and son in their minds thousands of
times since Adam died nearly two months ago. They know it means something — he is in the paradise
he asked about.

Adam was the baby of the Musa family, the youngest of seven. He was doted on by his three
sisters and adored by his three brothers. After his death, grief rippled through the family’s
community, and the Musas were flooded with food, thoughts and prayers from hundreds of people.

To thank those who reached out to them, the Musas will welcome people into their home this
afternoon. They said they want to thank everyone — the police officers and firefighters who
responded that day, Adam’s preschool teachers and the bank tellers and grocery store clerks he used
to grin at while on errands with his mom and dad.

Though Adam’s toys have been packed away, his memory is still throughout the Musa house. His
photo looks down on his parents in every room. Child locks remain on some cabinets.

Mr. Musa is one of the co-founders of the Islamic Cemetery of Columbus. He has washed many
bodies, preparing them for burial. When it came to his own son, though, his friends told him it
would be too hard.

But Mrs. Musa, who had bathed her little boy since birth, didn’t want someone else giving her
son his final bath. So the whole family — Adam’s three brothers and three sisters, his mother and
father — washed him together.

When they finished, they looked at their baby and saw a smile on his face.